Most surf fishing rods manufactured in the United States are inefficient for casting purposes. The primary problem with such rods results from the fact that the rod blanks are tapered at a very slow rate along the blank length. While it is theoretically possible to design slow taper blanks for reasonable casting results, such design is dependent upon the strength and physique of the individual angler. Moreover, the stiffness required in the rod to achieve reasonable casting distance is almost useless for good fishing when slow taper blanks are employed. Further, such rods are only able to handle sinkers within a narrow weight range with any effectiveness. In other words, in manufacturing a slow tapered rod for good casting, the sinker weight would have to be specified and would inevitably clash with the angler's need for a rod which accommodates a realistically wide range of sinkers and lures. Thus the designer would have to specify casting technique, line weight, reel type, etc., all of which further restricts the versatility and appeal of the rod. In any case, the finest slow taper rod built is able to cast no more than about 125 yards.
On the other hand, foreign-made rods, particularly rods manufactured in Great Britain, employ faster tapering blanks to easily achieve casting distances of around 200 yards. However, such foreign-made fishing rods have by no means optimized casting distance and, under any circumstances, have not properly married the requirements of casting with satisfactory fishing characteristics.
It is conventional to manufacture fishing rods by wrapping sheets of material about a suitably configured elongated mandrel. The sheets are generally made of fiberglass impregnated with a resin and partially cured by heat treatment before being wrapped about the mandrel. The partially cured sheets are successively wrapped about the mandrel and then fully cured in an oven until the sheets are hardened. The resulting blank is then removed from the mandrel. In providing a rod having a sufficient fast taper portion to achieve desired casting distances, the mandrel configuration is all important. Specifically, the degree of taper of the mandrel permits minimizing the number of wraps of the various sheets to achieve the desired rod blank diameter for optimizing casting distances.